On the LinuxWorld Floor

NEW YORKLike a contented beehive, New Yorks Javits Center is abuzz with happy LinuxWorld goers. SCO may be suing Novell and trying to lobby Congress in the cold (25 degrees in NYC) outside world, but such mere nuisances arent dampening the mood of the exhibitors inside.
The first thing youll notice as you enter the LinuxWorld main hall are the exhibitors: Computer Associates, HP, IBM, Novell, Oracle ... oh, did I mention that this is a Linux show? Tux, the penguin, is everywhere, and so are the big-time corporate IT companies that support him. Let me say this again with feeling: Linux is now just as part of the computing mainstream as Unix or Windows.

Speaking of Windows, Microsoft has a booth in the show. On the first day of the show, however, it was shrouded with signs that youd be able to get the facts (about Linux) at 10:30 a.m. the next day. Isnt that just like Microsoft, big promises and a late delivery?

The smaller, pure-Linux-play companies are here as well, with Red Hat leading the way. But there arent many of them: Gentoo, Debian, Steeleye, Xandros and a handful of others.KDE is much better than Gnome," or vice-versa, and voila, instant discussion. Usually this is followed by a, ahem, heated debate.Click here for a story on kernel maintainer Andrew Mortons optimism on Linux desktops and client apps.BEA Systems, the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) power, is here in force. Its slogan is: "BEA enables Java and Linux." JBoss and other open Java development companies would have been interested to see all the attendees who have been swarming about the BEA booth. The Art of Unix Programming. Now, let me say beforehand that Ive known Eric for more than 20 years, so Im clearly biased here. That said, his book is the best Ive ever read on the zen of programming. If you read it, you wont learn how to program, but you will learn how to program well.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is editor at large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, Vaughan-Nichols worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects. Since then, he's focused on covering the technology and business issues that make a real difference to the people in the industry.